The great thing about the internet is that you can own your business for next to nothing. Free hosts can be tempting as a way to see if your business will have an online presence. Your site needs to look like a successful business even if you don't have a lot of money to spend.
Consider your image. If you are starting a blog for personal reasons it might not matter what your domain name looks like. If you are looking for cheap website hosting for a business blog then you probably want to own your domain name instead of looking at a free service to lend credibility to your site. You don't need a web designer to make your site look like a million bucks. You can achieve a simple, sleek look with free blogging templates that will seem professional.
Read before you buy. The lowest price site may actually end up costing you a lot more money then a mid priced site. Read other customer's experiences so you don't get scammed and so you get a site that functions the way you need it to.
Credits aren't all they've cracked up to be. The company will probably offer you loads of free advertising coupons and codes but they usually don't work out that way. In order to use your free coupon code you'll have to first deposit a certain amount of money into the account. You should sign a contract with a host based not on freebies but on quality.
Consider how your site may expand. Your website or blog will probably start out small and you might not even have several sites that you need to host. You want to get a plan that will work for you in the future as well as right now. Watch out for plans with big jumps between size levels so you can grow your blog into what you want it to be.
Watch out for add-ons. You may be a little shocked when you first look at the shopping cart of your chosen company; it may be a much higher price then you were expecting. Many companies require you to look at pages of offers before you pay so you want to make sure that you've unchecked all of the boxes. You might want to use certain add-ons that will give you added features even if it does cost more money. You can pay a few dollars a year to have your personal WHOIS information hidden.